MONTEVERDI Madrigals, Book 7 • Marco Longhini, dir; Delitiae Musicae • NAXOS 8.555314 (3 CDs: 162:45 Text and Translation)


Following the first six books of madrigals (30:2, 31: 2), with the rest promised in due course, Longhini’s new Book 7 was recorded in a single week using his new critical edition, the first since Malapiero’s in 1932. This is only the fourth complete recorded set of the collection that was published in 1619 as “Concerto,” preceded by Raymond Leppard issued in 1977 (3:2), Roberto Gini in 1989 (14: 1), and Claudio Cavina in 1998 (26:4). While Leppard was working on his recordings, Michel Corboz made eight LPs of madrigals drawn from all the books, including 17 of Book 7’s 29 pieces. It is remarkable that the timings of the four sets have lengthened with each new version, though the two most nearly alike (Gini and Cavina) are less than a minute apart overall. For Longhini, this is not unexpected, for the tempos in all of his previous discs have been longer than most of the alternatives.


Book 7 was the last Leppard set to appear on Philips, and the LPs were not even issued in England, perhaps because the previous sets had been received less than enthusiastically. His six complete books, recorded for Philips from 1969 to 1975, were issued in a box of eight CDs only in 1998, although in the first year of the CD EMI had reissued the much older recordings that he had made for them. There is a connection between the other two sets, for Cavina had been a member of Gini’s group (he then joined Rinaldo Alessandrini’s group, which has still not recorded Book 7, before forming his own ensemble).


Book 7 was a remarkable advance over Monteverdi’s first six books, which were all set for five voices. The title page for this book made clear the break by specifying madrigals for one, two, three, four, and six voices together with other kinds of sung works. Longhini’s notes are illuminating, for he has learned much in preparing his own edition from the 1619 edition and four reprints, as well as from the original published texts of the poems. He cites Claudio Gallico’s statement that the pieces are arranged in a “carefully calculated and finely balanced” way, setting it against Cavina’s reordering of the pieces in his recording (the only one of the four to do so). He explains in detail the errors that he has corrected not only in Malapiero’s edition but also in the original.


Longhini’s ensemble consists of seven male voices (two countertenors on the top lines) with 15 players. Each track specifies the participants. He defends the use of a countertenor in “Lettera amorosa,” more often (but by no means always) sung by a woman, for the poet himself specified that the letter is being read by the impatient writer, not the recipient. Apart from what his group sings is the matter of how the group sings. As noted in previous reviews, Longhini’s tempos reflect a preference for expression and harmonic subtlety over speed and agility. His all-male ensemble requires downward transposition. His use of instruments, optional in most of the earlier works, is no longer an issue now in works that specify them, even calling for two flutes in “A quest’olmo.” A total timing more than 15 percent slower than the other two modern sets (even greater with respect to Leppard) seems enormous, but it is not. To be sure, “A quest’olmo” is the only piece that is not the slowest of the four versions, but only three or four pieces are notably slower than the competition. This is simply a more relaxed interpretation, made more obvious only because it spills over to a third disc.


The singers are remarkably fine, and the new edition deserves close attention. His current competition, of course, is Cavina, who doubtless defends the contrast that he provides by choosing a different order for the selections. He also has a splendid group of singers and a deluxe presentation, if slightly more expensive. There are clear differences between the interpretations of Cavina and Longhini, but each is worth a serious hearing.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.
Includes madrigal(s) by Claudio Monteverdi. Ensemble: Delitiae Musicae. Conductor: Marco Longhini.

Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 4

Who on this planet has never seen KING KONG and heard Max Steiner’s powerful innovative music more than once? Here’s a treasure trove of classic scary music that these 20th-century composers gave their best and probably never thought would ever be heard again and especially newly recorded! Film fans and scholars in every future century will continue to discover and study this music art form and give the composers their unexpected and rightful immortality!
— Craig Spaulding, Screen Archives Entertainment

MONIUSZKO Fairy Tale Overture. Overtures to: Paria; Halka; Verbum nobile; The Raftsman; The Countess; The Haunted Manor; Jawnuta; The New Don Quixote; The Hetman’s Mistress • Antoni Wit, cond; Warsaw P O • NAXOS 8.572716 (79:26)


Stanis?aw Moniuszko (1819–1872) is a musical descendent of Weber and Donizetti, with some clear influences of both heard in his operas. He was Poland’s leading operatic composer in the 19th century, and his works deserve more exposure than they get in today’s “masterpiece” driven climate. This collection of overtures is the most generous one we have been given on disc, and probably the finest. One hears influences of Weber, Donizetti, Rossini, and even early Wagner and Verdi in this music, but it would be too easy, and wrong, to write Moniuszko off as a cheap imitator. His voice may not be so strong as to be easily identifiable, but this is attractive music that demonstrates both inspiration and craft.


An Olympia CD (OCD 386) features recordings from the 1950s and 60s conducted by Fitelberg, Krenz, and Rowicki. These are exciting performances, but unevenly played by a variety of Polish orchestras, and with variable recorded sound. In the 1990s Robert Satanowsky led a collection with the Pomeranian Philharmonic on CPO (999 113) and Roland Bader and the Cracow Philharmonic gave us a similar grouping on Koch Schwann (3-1444-2). Both were adequate, neither was outstanding.


It is unlikely that any collector needs duplicate collections of Moniuszko overtures, and it would be difficult to recommend replacing one of those CDs with this one if you own and are satisfied with an earlier collection. If you don’t have one, or if you consider yourself a Moniuszko fanatic, then this would be the place to go. Although it would be difficult to make the case that Wit was a uniquely great interpreter, he does in fact bring more life and personality to these than was the case with Bader and Satanowski. (I’ll eliminate the Olympia collection from consideration because of its variable engineering standards). The lilt in the dance music at the center of The Countess , the tension created by careful dynamic shadings in The Haunted Manor , the wit present in The New Don Quixote are all qualities communicated clearly and with natural spontaneity in these performances. There is a lovely grace and elegance to much of this music, and Wit captures it with a lighter touch than others. The Warsaw Philharmonic is a front rank orchestra, and this music is in their blood.


Naxos’s generosity brings 25 more minutes of music than the Koch Schwann CD, and 13 more than the CPO disc. The accompanying notes provide helpful context for each of the overtures by summarizing briefly the operas’ stories. The recorded sound is a bit on the reverberant side, lacking ideal clarity of texture, but not seriously problematic. In sum, this is a delight.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Stanislaw Moniuszko was Poland's leading nineteenth-century opera composer, and has been called the man who bridges the gap between Chopin and Szymanowski. In addition to operatic works he also composed purely orchestral music, and this recording reveals that his essentially lyric style could funciton perfectly in the non-vocal medium. There is thematically memorable music from the comic opera Hrabina (The Countess), as well as enduring Polish-flavored dance scenes from his most popular and famous stage work, Halka. The spirited Mazurka from Straszny Dwor (The Haunted Manor), Moniuszko's crowning operatic achievement, draws freely and inventively from his national heritage.

A delightful disk.

I have never understood why some people call Mompou “the Spanish Satie” for his music is so different as to be from another planet. True, both of them can write music of almost virginal purity, but nowhere does Satie show the kind of high spirits that you can find in the seventh section of the Don Perlimplin ballet. This work is a real find. Until now I’d only heard an orchestral Suite but here is the complete score. It’s a fine piece, totally Mompou - Montsalvatge only created the second and eleventh sections and added a few linking passages, he also orchestrated the work - and there’s none of the spirituality of other works, such as the Musica callada. Extrovert Mompou? Yes, and why not? There’s much Spanish colouring à la Falla and Granados, and, the note tells us, a whiff of Poulenc, but breathe and you’ll miss it. No matter. This is a major discovery and with such a persuasive performance as this it might just make some concert promoter give us the orchestral version.
 
Ballet is a collection of 12 miniatures, all, but the opening Prelude, playing for around 60 seconds. There’s no development, simply statement and thoughtful discourse. Despite their brevity these are very satisfying and compelling pieces.
 
The rest of the programme is more miniatures, but ones which stand alone, and include Mompou’s only three chamber works. The Glossa and Fantasia on Au clair de la lune are both studies on the children’s song. The Romanca was written for the third anniversary of his engagement to his future bride. Mompou was obviously not a man to rush into things, for they didn’t get married for another 13 years! Moderato expresivo was later reworked and it appeared as no.18 in the Musica callada.
 
And so to the chamber music. Altitud for violin and piano was written whilst the composer was living in Paris and there is a distinct French feel to the piece. El pont is a late reworking, not a transcription, of a piano piece (1947) (available on Naxos 8.554727) in homage to Casals for his centenary. The final Comptines I - III are so short as to be lost after the other pieces which seem gargantuan by comparison - “the ant’s a centaur in his dragon world”, as Pound wrote. They are a most enjoyable finale to a delightful disk. The performances are very good and the sound is excellent. Mompou deserves the audience which I hope that this disk, and the previous four in the series, will bring him.
 
-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International  

The music on this sixth album of the piano music of Frederic Mompou presents works recently discovered by Jordi Masó in the Biblioteca de Catalunya’s Mompou Collection and at Mompou’s home. The recording complements Masó’s previous volumes released on Naxos (8.554332, 8.554448, 8.554570, 8.554727 and 8.570956). All were written between 1910–18 and show a highly gifted young composer whose musical idiom was already well formed. “Masó’s set is the modern choice, cleanly imaginative” (zarzuela.net). “Masó is a strong pianist completely at home in this idiom” (American Record Guide).

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (5-6/00, p.160) - "...These [works]...are elegantly and tastefully performed by Jordi Maso....[T]he music has a pensive, medi- tative quality, indeed even a hypnotic enchantment. There is also charm, elegance, wit, and grace in Maso's playing."

Mompou, F.: Piano Music, Vol. 1 - Cancons I Danses / Charme

Mompou: Piano Music, Vol. 4

MOERAN: Symphony in G minor / Sinfonietta

MOERAN Overture for a Masque. In the Mountain Country . Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 2. Rhapsody in F? 1 • JoAnn Falletta, cond; 1 Benjamin Frith (pn); Ulster O • NAXOS 8.573106 (57:06)


Vernon Handley, a conductor whose service to British music should be praised in the same breath as that of Adrian Boult (but too seldom was in his lifetime), recorded these works with the Ulster Orchestra for the Chandos label between 1987 and 1989. This was the first integral set of the three rhapsodies, and very fine it is, too—still a significant part of Anglo-Irish composer Ernest John Moeran’s discography, split onto two mid-price Chandos reissues. Now, 25 years later, the orchestra revisits this repertoire, under the direction of its American principal conductor JoAnn Falletta.


The Rhapsody No. 1 in F Major is a student work. It was completed in 1922 after Moeran had returned wounded from World War I to finish his studies at the Royal College of Music with John Ireland, to whom it is dedicated. It and In the Mountain Country , a rhapsody in all but name, are works written under the spell of folksong. Moeran had resumed his collecting of such songs while composing these two pieces, and though the themes he uses are original, they could easily pass as traditional. The other major influences on these, and in fact on all of the works presented here, are the music of Frederick Delius, Jean Sibelius, and friend Peter Warlock, and—perhaps most importantly—the picturesque landscapes of the east of both Ireland and England. The blend creates a bucolic lyricism and nostalgic tonality which makes him the target of those who sneer at the so-called “pastoral” school of English composition. This is a label Vaughan Williams’s reputation has been able to rise above, but not so much that of Moeran. Yes it is tuneful, and sometime the influences show too much, but it is hard to understand why this beautifully crafted, colorfully orchestrated, and immediately engaging music should be so neglected. It cannot be, even in the more youthful works, for want of refinement or emotional depth. And the two later works, the Rhapsody in F? for piano and orchestra and the Overture for a Masque , though written for the more populist needs of wartime audiences, are works of substance that achieve their audience appeal with real artistry.


The least obscure of the works on this program is the Rhapsody No. 2 in E Major, written just two years after the first, and notably the more mature work. It still sounds rather like Delius—that common criticism of Moeran’s earlier works—but the succession of great tunes is stitched together with impressive skill. Adrian Boult’s more expansive and Impressionistic reading for Lyrita has been my favorite, but I find that Falletta’s cooler and somewhat swifter approach—less Delian, it might be noted—with its emphasis on the characterful wind writing, brings out a delightful Celtic swagger. I think Falletta’s may be my new favorite.


Otherwise, if I was looking for differences between the two complete rhapsody editions—none of them all that significant—it would be that Falletta is consistently more direct, a quality to which these pieces respond well. Handley is inclined to emphasize dynamic and tempo contrasts, and to bring out an undercurrent of melancholy. The result, at slightly slower tempos, is more thoughtful but less engagingly jaunty. The Ulster Orchestra is, if anything, more polished and expressive than its counterpart of a quarter-century ago. Soloist Benjamin Firth is not as assertive in the Rhapsody in F? as Margaret Fingerhut was for Handley, in part the work of the engineers who integrate him more into the orchestral texture. That, and his somewhat less fulsome approach to the part, is at one with Falletta’s easygoing approach, and delivers much in the way of subtle beauty while yielding little in exuberance when the score demands it. I welcome both approaches, and am thrilled to have both conductors’ readings in my collection. This new disc joins the equally fine Falletta/Ulster release on Naxos of the cello concerto, serenade, and Two Pieces for Small Orchestra . Both discs are highly recommended.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

Although his brief life prevented him from being particularly prolific (he died in 1950, aged 55), E.J. Moeran was a fine composer with a distinctive and very attractive voice. It’s odd that his music hasn’t received more acclaim. After all, there are plenty of French and Spanish composers, including Falla, Dukas, and Mompou, who wrote very little and yet get plenty of attention. Moeran certainly was in their league in his best work, and both the Cello Concerto and the Serenade belong in that category.

Composed for his wife, Peers Coetmore, the concerto is suffused with the spirit of Irish folk song, but also contains an edge to the harmony that places it far beyond the droopy musings of the English “cow pat” school. Guy Johnston’s playing here is as fine as in any version yet recorded; and with tempos marginally fleeter than the competition on Chandos, this version may well become the reference recording for the work. Credit for that certainly goes equally to JoAnn Falletta, who also offers the scintillating neo-classical Serenade in its original version containing eight movements instead of the usual six.

The program concludes with two charming miniatures, Whythorne’s Shadow, and Lonely Waters, the latter with its folk-song motto sung quite prettily at the end by Rebekah Coffey (there’s also a purely orchestral version). Excellent, well-balanced engineering completes this wholly recommendable release.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Leon (Ludwig) Minkus (1826-1917) Don Quixote (Ballet in Three Acts) performed by the Sofia National Orchestra conducted by Nayden Todorov. Recorded at the National Palace of Culture, Sofia, Bulgaria April 1-7, 2002. Austrian born Minkus settled in Russia where he established a long & successful career with choreographer Marius Petipa for whom Minkus wrote the music for more than fifteen ballets. "As one would expect from a ballet by Minkus, Don Quixote is full of lively dances and attractive melodies, all of it well crafted and colorfully orchestrated, if without the genius of Tchaikovsky and Delibes. That said, it makes for undemanding, entertaining listening, with it's dashes of Spanish coloring (the Spanish dances are especially attractive) and plenty of character dances, such as the Sailor's Dance in Act II, to enjoy. The performance is lively and sympathetic and the recording reasonably good (it lacks a certain richness) at the price, admirers of both light music and ballet should not hesitate: there is plenty to enjoy here."- Penguin Guide.